Silence
by Aramel
Summary: For the Halloween challenge at the Silwritersguild comm on LJ. An inhabitant of a medieval city witnesses the death of a supernatural being. Very short. Warning for character death.


A/N: For the Halloween challenge on the silwritersguild comm on LJ. The words of the sentence are taken verbatim from the Malleus Maleficarum. The actual procedure, so I gather from a bit of research, was that the person was tried by the ecclesiastical court and then given over to the secular court for the actual death sentence. Many were declared innocent, if they could find witnesses in their favour. But at the height of the panic the procedure wasn't so clear. People were still given a lighter sentence if they confessed freely (which the little _filit_'s too stubborn to do) but more extreme methods were used in interrogation and there was virtually no way to be declared innocent, especially not for someone who isn't and doesn't act like a medieval man.

If anyone can help with the Quenya, please do so. I'm not sure I got it right.

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The boy hurries along, skirting the edge of the marketplace, twisting his body this way and that to wriggle through the mass of people. He isn't supposed to be here-- Master Alfred said time and again that things like this were not fit for the eyes of children-- but his own insatiable curiosity will not allow him to stay in the carpenter's shop at a time like this, when the town turns out to watch the spectacle. After all, he thinks rebelliously, even babes and toddlers will be there, clinging to their mothers' skirts. All the other boys go, and make it a measure and a symbol of their daring. Why should he have to stay away? 

There is a strangely festive air in the open market. People jostle each other to get closer to the center of the marketplace, and others are pointing and lecturing their children about the rewards of ill-doing. And at the center of it all there is a stake, piled high with dry wood, upon which a man is bound, his head bowed and his dark hair hanging over his face, the subject of jeers and taunts. Around him, on high seats, sit a number of bishops. They seem as starkly different as day and night, these holy men in their glittering vestments and the condemned heretic in his tattered rags, chained to his death.

Over the noise a voice begins to speak, slowly growing in clarity to the boy's ears as the hubbub subsides. "Wherefore that you may be an example to others and that they may be kept from all such heresies, and that such crimes may not remain unpunished: We the Bishop and Judges named on behalf of the faith, sitting in tribunal as Judges judging, and having before us the Holy Gospels that our judgement may proceed as from the countenance of God and our eyes see with equity, and having before our eyes only God and the glory and honour of the Holy Faith, we judge, declare and pronounce sentence that you standing here in our presence on this day at the hour and place appointed for the hearing of your final sentence, are an impenitent heretic."

Silence. Perhaps some answer is unexpected, but the man makes none, and another-- a priest-- now walks up to the stake, looks up at the heretic, urges him to confess and repent, so that he may be given a merciful death. The crowd goes wild, like an animal cheated of its prey. The boy shivers despite himself, though he knows that he should not. He moves closer, to prove to himself that it was not fear that made him tremble. He convinces himself that he is not afraid to watch, even as part of him wants desperately for the man to speak, to confess everything to escape this death.

The man says nothing. He stands there, chained, his head bowed to hide his face.

"It is time," someone says, and a torch is brought from somewhere, handed to the priest, who holds it high before touching it to the wood, which eagerly takes up the fire. Flame dances from log to log, golden and almost transparent in the pale day. There is no smoke, and the people around the boy murmur, eagerly, knowing that this is the scene of cruelty they desire, and that soon there will be screams and pleading. They wait for it.

There is only silence. Silence as the fire licks closer to the chained man, so that the boy, standing where he is now, can see the heat blurring the air. Closer and closer, and the man makes no noise, not even when the sparks strike what clothing he has, and burn little smoking holes in it. Then a stray flame finds the man's hair, which catches with a dull whoosh, and the man throws his head back and cries out, in a tongue the boy has never heard and will never hear again.

_Ai toronya, fíranyë qualmelya!_ And though the voice is hoarse, broken with pain and something more than pain, it strikes the boy through and through with something exquisite and terrible, more so even than the impossibly beautiful face twisted in agony and a strange and desperate desire. The boy has seen that expression sometimes, in wild animals taken captive: the look of one who wants nothing but death.

The boy finds that he is sobbing violently, aching somewhere inside for so many things he cannot explain, as the fire burns brighter and brighter until it consumes itself and dies. There is a shocked hush hanging over the crowd, and one by one they turn and leave, trickling away like water through a sieve, while the holy men speak their ritual words. Empty words, after those the dying man uttered. Even as the boy flees down the alleyway that will lead him once more to the shop where he is apprenticed, he inexplicably knows the meaning of what was said.

_My brother, I die your death._

Behind, in the now empty and silent square, a west wind rises and scatters the ashes into the sea.


End file.
